First Confidential

THIS DAY IN HISTORY - OCTOBER 14th

George Berkeley, Quote

“If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”

~ George Berkeley

Wikiquote (George Berkeley (March 12, 1685 – January 14, 1753), also known as Bishop Berkeley (Bishop of Cloyne), was an Anglo-Irish philosopher whose primary achievement was the advancement of a theory he called "immaterialism" (later referred to as "subjective idealism" by others).)

This Day in History

October 14th, 222

Roman Empire Decline and Fall of Rome Saint Urban I; Pope Urban wearing the Papal Tiara

Roman Empire:
222 - Pope Callixtus I is killed by a mob in Rome's Trastevere after a 5-year reign in which he had stabilized the Saturday fast three times per year, with no food, oil, or wine to be consumed on those days. Callixtus is succeeded by cardinal Urban I.

Wikipedia  Image: Relief from a 3rd-century sarcophagus depicting a battle between Romans and Germanic warriors; the central figure is perhaps the emperor Hostilian / Depiction of the Menorah on the Arch of Titus in Rome.
Painting: The Play Scene in Hamlet by Daniel Maclise (1842). Hamlet, prince of Denmark, arranges for strolling players to re-enact the murder of his father, the king, by his brother, Claudius; Claudius had succeeded to the throne. The ghost of Hamlet’s father had revealed the murder at the beginning of the play. Tate Gallery, London.

October 14th, 1814

Napoleonic Wars: (1803–15) were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions Congress of Vienna, intended to redraw Europe's political map after the defeat of Napoléon the previous spring

French Revolutionary Wars / Napoleonic Wars:
1814 - War of the Sixth Coalition; Battle of Mormans (A coalition of Austria, Prussia, Russia, the United Kingdom, Portugal, Sweden, Spain and a number of German States finally defeated France and drove Napoleon into exile on Elba.)

Wikipedia  Painting: Battle of Trafalgar: The British HMS Sandwich fires to the French flagship Bucentaure (completely dismasted) in the battle of Trafalgar; Napoleon in Berlin (Meynier). After defeating Prussian forces at Jena, the French Army entered Berlin on 27 October 1806; Battle of the Bridge of Arcole Napoleon Bonaparte leading his troops over the bridge of Arcole, by Horace Vernet; Napoleon as King of Italy (Appiani); Napoleon Crossing the Alps (David). In 1800 Bonaparte took the French Army across the Alps, eventually defeating the Austrians at Marengo; Charge of the Russian Imperial Guard cavalry against French cuirassiers at the Battle of Friedland, 14 June 1807; Battle of Borodino as depicted by Louis Lejeune. The battle was the largest and bloodiest single-day action of the Napoleonic Wars; Napoleon's withdrawal from Russia, a painting by Adolph Northen; Wellington at Waterloo by Robert Alexander Hillingford; Napoleon is often represented in his green colonel uniform of the Chasseur à Cheval, with a large bicorne and a hand-in-waistcoat gesture.
Map: Europe after the Congress Of Vienna, credit University of Cambridge, Faculty of History.

October 14th, 1863

Lincoln Memorial: an American national monument built to honor the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln - located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. across from the Washington Monument American Civil War: Battle of Antietam; Stone Bridge at Antietam Battlefield - Sharpsburg, Maryland American Civil War: American Civil War: First Battle Between Ironclads; CSS Virginia/Merrimac (left) vs. USS Monitor, in 1862 at the Battle of Hampton Roads

American Civil War:
1863 - Battle of Bristoe Station; Confederate troops under the command of General Robert E. Lee fail to drive the American Union Army completely out of the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Wikipedia  Image: ● Lincoln Memorial; an American national monument built to honor the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln - located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. across from the Washington Monument.
● The northern army led by George McClellan and the southern army led by Robert E. Lee met at Antietam Creek, Maryland in September, 1862. It was a bloody battle where 13,000 Confederates and 12,000 Union troops died in just one day. McClellan had hesitated to attack before the battle thus letting the southern troops regroup. Also, he had saved reserves and refused to use them at the end of the battle thinking that Lee was holding reserves for a counterattack, even though those reserves didn't exist. The Union victory stopped Lee's northward advance and was a turning point in the war.
● Battle of Antietam / Stone Bridge at Antietam Battlefield - Sharpsburg, Maryland
● First Battle Between Ironclads: CSS Virginia/Merrimac (left) vs. USS Monitor, in 1862 at the Battle of Hampton Roads.
● Although photography was still in its infancy, war correspondents produced thousands of images, bringing the harsh realities of the frontlines to those on the home front in a new and visceral way. The Atlantic.

October 14th, 1884

Thomas Edison (right) demonstrating the kinetograph (motion picture camera), with the assistance of George Eastman, who helped develop the film used in the early motion picture machines

The American inventor, George Eastman, receives a United States government patent on his new paper-strip photographic film.

Wikipedia  Photo: Thomas Edison (right) demonstrating the kinetograph (motion picture camera), with the assistance of George Eastman, who helped develop the film used in the early motion picture machines.

October 14th, 1913

Senghenydd Colliery Disaster, the United Kingdom's worst coal mining accident, occurs, and it claims the lives of 439 miners

Senghenydd Colliery Disaster, the United Kingdom's worst coal mining accident, occurs, and it claims the lives of 439 miners.

Wikipedia  Photo: Universal Colliery, Senghenydd, scene of one of Wales worst pit explosions, October 1913, credit WalesOnline UK.

October 14th, 1938

World War II: Second firestorm raid on Germany, the Royal Air Force conducts an air raid on the town of Kassel, killing 10,000 and rendering 150,000 homeless World War II: Battle of Leyte Gulf; Battle of Leyte Gulf; The first kamikaze attack: A Japanese plane carrying a 200-kilogram (440 lb) bomb attacks HMAS Australia off Leyte Island World War II: German V1 flying-bomb and V2 Rockets - Preparations for a Salvo Launch of V-2 Rockets in the Heidelager near Blizna (Poland) (1944) World War II: Eastern Front (World War II); was a theatre of World War II between the European Axis powers and co-belligerent Finland against the Soviet Union, Poland, and some other Allies which encompassed Northern, Southern and Eastern Europe from 22 June 1941 to 9 May 1945 The first flight of the Curtiss Aircraft Company's P-40 Warhawk fighter plane World War II: The new government of Italy sides with the Allies and declares war on Germany

World War II:
1938 - The first flight of the Curtiss Aircraft Company withdraws from P-40 Warhawk fighter plane.
1939 - Battle of the Atlantic; German submarine U-47 sinks the British battleship HMS Royal Oak within her harbour at Scapa Flow, Scotland.
1940 - Battle of Britain; Balham subway station disaster, in London, England, occurs during the Nazi Luftwaffe air raids on Great Britain.
1943 - The American Eighth Air Force oses 60 B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bombers in aerial combat during the second mass-daylight air raid on the Schweinfurt ball-bearing factories in western Germany.
1943 - José P. Laurel takes the oath of office as President of the Philippines (Japanese Occupation Republic).
1944 - Athens, Greece is liberated by British Army troops entering the city as the Wehrmacht pull out.

Wikipedia  Photo: Bombing of Dresden in World War II; August Schreitmüller's sculpture 'Goodness' surveys Dresden after a firestorm started by Allied bombers in 1945. USS Bunker Hill was hit by kamikazes piloted by Ensign Kiyoshi Ogawa and another airman on 11 May 1945. 389 personnel were killed or missing from a crew of 2,600; Ensign Kiyoshi Ogawa, who flew his aircraft into the USS Bunker Hill during a Kamikaze mission on 11 May 1945; Kamikaze Missions - Lt Yoshinori Yamaguchi's Yokosuka D4Y3 (Type 33 Suisei) "Judy" in a suicide dive against USS Essex. The dive brakes are extended and the non-self-sealing port wing tank is trailing fuel vapor and/or smoke 25 November 1944.
German V1 flying-bomb and V2 Rockets - Preparations for a Salvo Launch of V-2 Rockets in the Heidelager near Blizna (Poland) (1944), credit German History in Documents and Images GHDI.

Eastern Front (World War II); Germans race towards Stalingrad. August 1942; Soviet children during a German air raid in the first days of the war, June 1941, by RIA Novosti archive; Soviet sniper Roza Shanina in 1944. About 400,000 Soviet women served in front-line duty units Caucasus Mountains, winter 1942/43; Finnish ski patrol: the invisible enemy of the Soviet Army with an unlimited supply of skis; Men of the German Engineers Corps cross a river which is swollen after the first autumn rains, to strengthen bridges linking the German positions on the central front in Russia. by Keystone / Getty Images. October 1942; Russian snipers fighting on the Leningrad front during a blizzard. Photo by Hulton Archive / Getty Images, 1943; German soldiers surrendering to the Russians in Stalingrad, the soldier holding the white flag of surrender is dressed in white so that there could be no doubt of his intentions, a Russian soldier is on the right of the photograph. by Keystone / Getty Images, January 1943.
● P-40 Warhawk fighters. ● Second Raid on Schweinfurt; Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses.

October 14th, 1943

World War II, The Holocaust

World War II: Holocaust;
1943 - Prisoners at the Nazi German Sobibor extermination camp in Poland revolt against the Germans, killing eleven SS guards, and wounding many more. About 300 of the Sobibor Camp's 600 prisoners escape, and about 50 of these survive the end of the war.

Wikipedia  Photo: World War II, The Holocaust. Sources: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum USHMM, History 1900s, Internet Masters of Education Technology IMET, Techno Friends, Veterans Today, Concern.

October 14th, 1952

Korean War: United Nations and South Korean forces launch Operation Showdown against Chinese strongholds at the Iron Triangle. The resulting Battle of Triangle Hill is the biggest and bloodiest battle of 1952

Korean War: United Nations and South Korean forces launch Operation Showdown against communist Chinese strongholds at the Iron Triangle. The resulting Battle of Triangle Hill is the biggest and bloodiest battle of 1952.

Wikipedia  Photo: Korean War Collage credit, The Big Picture, Boston Globe - (Associated Press; U.S. Department of Defense / SGT. F.C. Kerr; AP Photo; U.S. Department of Defense / TSGT. Charles B. Tyler; U.S. Department of Defense / TSGT. Charles B. Tyler; U.S. Department of Defense / TSGT. Robert H. Mosier; AP Photo / Max Desfor; U.S. Department of Defense / CPL. P. McDonald; AP Photo / Max Desfor; AP Photo/George Sweers; U.S. Navy / Maj. R.V. Spencer, UAF; AP Photo / Max Desfor).

October 14th, 1967

Vietnam War: U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk states during a news conference that proposals by the U.S. Congress for peace initiatives are futile because of North Vietnam's opposition

Vietnam War:
1967 - The folk singer Joan Baez is arrested concerning a physical blockade of the United States Army's induction center in Oakland, California.
1968 - 27 soldiers are arrested at the Presidio of San Francisco in California for their peaceful protest of stockade conditions and the Vietnam War.
1968 - The United States Department of Defense announces that the United States Army and United States Marine Corps will send about 24,000 soldiers and Marines back to Vietnam for involuntary second tours of duty in the combat zone there.

Wikipedia  Photo: Vietnam War: Hovering U.S. Army helicopters pour machine gun fire into a tree line to cover the advance of South Vietnamese ground troops in an attack on a Viet Cong camp 18 miles north of Tay Ninh, northwest of Saigon near the Cambodian border, in Vietnam on March 1965. (AP Photo / Horst Faas) / Boston Globe

October 14th, 1968

Apollo Program: Apollo 11 first manned Moon landing and the first walk on the surface on the moon. Astronaut Buzz Aldrin walks on the surface of the moon near the leg of the lunar module Eagle. Apollo 11 Commander Neil Armstrong took this photograph with a 70mm lunar surface camera. Armstrong and Aldrin explored the Sea of Tranquility for two and a half hours while crewmate Michael Collins orbited above in the command module Columbia. The Blue Marble is a famous photograph of the Earth, taken on December 7, 1972, by the crew of the Apollo 17 spacecraft, at a distance of about 45,000 kilometres (28,000 mi)

Apollo program: Apollo 7; The first live telecast from a manned spacecraft, launched by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

Wikipedia  Photo: Apollo Program: Apollo 11 first manned Moon landing and the first walk on the surface on the moon. Astronaut Buzz Aldrin walks on the surface of the moon near the leg of the lunar module Eagle. Apollo 11 Commander Neil Armstrong took this photograph with a 70mm lunar surface camera. Armstrong and Aldrin explored the Sea of Tranquility for two and a half hours while crewmate Michael Collins orbited above in the command module Columbia.
The Blue Marble is a famous photograph of the Earth, taken on December 7, 1972, by the crew of the Apollo 17 spacecraft, at a distance of about 45,000 kilometres (28,000 mi).

October 14th, 2012

Parachute: The word 'parachute' comes from the French prefix paracete, originally from the Greek, meaning to protect against, and chute, the French word for 'fall', and it was originally coined, as a hybrid word which meant literally 'that which protects against a fall', by the French aeronaut François Blanchard (1753–1809) in 1785.

Felix Baumgartner jumps from the stratosphere to try to break the record of the highest freefall jump, at an altitude of 39,068 meters (128,18 ft).

Wikipedia  Photo: Felix Baumgartner prepares to skydive from an unofficial altitude of 128,097 feet (39 km) (Photo: Red Bull Stratos) ● Russian soldiers make parachute jumps during a training session during Peace Mission-2009, (Reuters) ● United States parachute jumps ● A parachute deploys as the space shuttle Endeavour touches down at Edwards Air Force Base, Sunday, Nov. 30, 2008 in California. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)

October 14th, 2014

Nepal snowstorm disaster: A snowstorm and avalanche in the Nepalese Himalayas triggered by the remnants of Cyclone Hudhud kills 43 people.

Nepal snowstorm disaster: A snowstorm and avalanche in the Nepalese Himalayas triggered by the remnants of Cyclone Hudhud kills 43 people..

Wikipedia  Photo: Nepalese Army rescuers remove the bodies of avalanche victims. Photograph by Nepal Army, Xinhua/Zuma Wire

October 14th, 2017

List of modern conflicts in the Middle East

Modern conflicts in the Middle East, social unrest and terrorist attacks:
2017 - Mogadishu bombings; Mogadishu, Somalia - A massive truck bombing in Somalia kills 358 people and injures more than 400 others.
2015 - Taunsa Sharif bombing; Taunsa Sharif, Punjab, Pakistan - A suicide bomb attack in Pakistan, kills at least seven people and injures 13 others.

Wikipedia  Photo: Middle East satellite image, NASA. ● Camels are seen early morning on a beach in the Marina area of Dubai October 16, 2008. (Steve Crisp, Reuters) ● A portrait of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad burns during clashes between rebels and Syrian troops in Selehattin, near Aleppo, on July 23, 2012. (Bulent Kilic, AFP / GettyImages) ● Egyptians gather in their thousands in Tahrir Square to mark the one year anniversary of the revolution on Jan. 25, 2012 in Cairo Egypt. Tens of thousands have gathered in the square on the first anniversary of the Arab uprising which toppled President Hosni Mubarak. (Jeff J Mitchell, Getty Images) ● Black smoke rises above the Tehran skyline as supporters of Mir Hossein Mousavi burn tires and other material in the streets as they fight running battles with police to protest the declared results of the Iranian presidential election in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, June 13, 2009. (Ben Curtis, AP) ● The Iron Dome defense system fires to interecpt incoming missiles from Gaza in the port town of Ashdod, Thursday, Nov. 15, 2012. (Tsafrir Abayov, AP)